I just got some unfortunate news it seems that there has been a mud slide
between the Edmonds and Everett train stations for Amtrak so tomorrow when I
head home I'm going to be taking the train only as far as Seattle and then
unfortunately transferring to a bus which was sort of my biggest concern for
this trip was that something you know act of god would go wrong and
subsequently I would end up with my ass stuck on a bus if I wanted to take a bus
I would have taken a bus I would have taken a greyhound or something but that
wasn't the point that's why the whole thing is called amtrak cascades the name
of the train line rail travel in the 21st century so it looks like 21st
century is still you know subject to weather. I phoned in to Amtrak and I
just wanted information I wasn't calling to complain I just wanted to find out
because I mean I didn't want to take a bus so I didn't look into the bus option
in much detail so I didn't know if they I mean it's unlikely they'd have power
outlets or Wi-Fi or even bathrooms are a bit of a question mark and I was also
concerned that taking a bus is going to take longer than taking a train so I
call in to the Amtrak line I'm just wanting some information one of the
questions that I asked was are there outlets on the bus I suppose it's
conceivable although very unlikely or maybe there'd be just like one or two or
something I don't know but that's an amenity on all the trains is everyone gets
their own outlet and so she responds with I'm sorry sir there's nothing we can do
that was not my question you know that's responding to a complaint I wasn't
making a complaint I just wanted pure solid information I was kind of looking
online and it wasn't really readily apparent in fact on the Amtrak website
there's no information about the service disruption there wasn't an alert or
press release nothing that I could find and I checked both Amtrak and the Amtrak
cascades websites so we went on and one of the questions I had was well does this
mean I'm gonna be getting into Vancouver late and she says why would you ask that
I said the bus doesn't travel on the tracks and if it did it wouldn't be able
to go because a mudslide so it's going to take a different route
there's gonna be traffic conceivably you're gonna cross the border through
some sort of bus lane or maybe regular car traffic it's not going to be on a
track with dedicated people coming over maybe there will be dedicated people
coming over I don't know that's why I'm asking and so she says no no there's no reason
it should be late we'll adhere to the time table don't get me wrong so far
it's been fantastic trains are little nap factories it's you got some white noise
you got a little you know vibration it's nice and warm lots of leg room comfortable
seat, you get a little music you're listening to and you're out and it's nice it's not
I mean as adults how often do we get opportunities to just take a nice nap
where we're not being interrupted and so it's nicely quiet and everything at
least in you know in business class it was so trains are nice if you can
rely on them what does it mean when you can't take your train how much of an
inconvenience is that what kind of accommodations are you going to get
stuck with what's that experience going to be like so this is my last night in
Portland so I'm going to head out to ground kontrol after picking up some wool
for my mommy I'm gonna head out to ground kontrol which is the arcade that Wil
Wheaton recently endorsed. I had lunch with my dad today which it was pretty
good you know we're just trading funny work stories and I thought we were gonna
have an incident like when we went to Edmonton when I was in high school I
think we got there and he had no reservations for a hotel room and we
ended up at a sleeping in his truck that night because he just didn't plan ahead
which I mean a formative moment for me clearly I plan very well ahead if
you've seen my clipboard you know what I'm talking about so anyways we get to
this restaurant that he kind of picked out and we get there and they're like do you have a
reservation? And I'm like oh it's happening again same guy same mistake but no it
turns out that they actually had room at the bar so we just ate at the bar and that
was fine had some pumpkin pie which at first I said no to but then my dad was
like no no no he'll have the pumpkin pie and my mom makes a fantastically amazing
pumpkin pie if you've ever had it, it will change your very definition of
pumpkin pie you'll understand that there's actually supposed to be pumpkin
in there, it's supposed to come from a pumpkin recognizable as such
um and they actually did a really good job although their turkey sandwich it was
it was bland I could have put something together better myself and I don't do
that. I'm gonna be stuck on a bus for hours tomorrow I better enjoy the
freedom to be able to move around and yeah just be comfortable I went back to
Powell's today and picked up another book so it's not like I'll be short on
reading materials if I'm stuck on a bus so I mean I'm adaptable, it might
not be what I wanted but should be alright